Desserts

Cookies may be the last thing on your mind when thinking of a low-carb dessert, but these sugar-free, low carb coconut macaroons let you have a taste of sweetness while still sticking to your diet. This is such an easy, low-carb dessert recipe, you can whip them up whenever a dessert craving strikes and have them on your plate in less than 20 minutes!

Just a few notes here: you MUST make sure that your bowl and beaters are 100% dry and free from any speck or drop of oil. Just the tiniest amount of water or oil will cause your egg whites to fall flat.

Also, you may want to add a pinch of cream of tartar to your beaten egg whites to help them keep their form. I did not use any, but humidity can play a part in how well they hold up. If your egg whites collapse, the cream of tartar will help.

For a variation, try melting a handful of low carb chocolate chips with a little coconut oil in a double boiler and using it as a drizzle.

Now. On to the recipe.

This recipe makes 20 cookies, with a net carb count of 1.9 grams, depending on the brand of sweetener you use.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and the sweetener together until stiff.

3. Add the vanilla and 2 cups of the coconut, and gently stir. Excessive stirring will cause the egg whites to collapse, so be gentle here.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and scoop out a tablespoon of the coconut mixture. Form it into a ball and place it on the baking sheet. if the mixture won't hold a semi-ball shape, you may need to mix in a little more coconut. You want the mixture to just hold its shape long enough to bake.

5. Bake for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Keep a close eye on these, as they can burn pretty quickly.

These keep pretty well in the refrigerator if kept in a covered container. They can also be frozen for up to 1 month.

I may upset a few people here by not using Baked Alaska as the state dessert, but let me tell you: Baked Alaska was created in New York to resemble Mount McKinley by someone who had never even set foot in the state. I absolutely could not include that in my list, as I feel it is an insult to the native desserts that actually deserve to be mentioned.

If you're looking for a truly authentic Alaskan dessert, you could always try Akutaq, which is a Yup'ik (a native Alaskan language) word meaning mix them together. Although recipes for Akutaq can vary from family to family, it originally contained tallow, seal oil, cooked fish, and berries. Since I'm pretty sure most of you don't want to make what is basically 'fish ice cream', I decided to focus on a dish that would showcase one of Alaska's greatest assets: berries.

Alaska is home to roughly 50 different varieties of berry. Among these are blueberries, raspberries, crowberries, and lingonberries. Just imagine all of the delicious things you could make! I chose to make a cobbler featuring a mix of berries I already had on hand to represent this beautiful state. Pair it with some homemade vanilla ice cream for an extra special dessert that is especially delicious during the late summer months.

This is the very first post in my Stately Desserts series. What this series is, is a collection of desserts that I have compiled while researching which desserts are the most popular in each of the states here in the US. I will attempt to post a new Stately Dessert recipe once per week, so keep your eyes open!

I'm kicking this series off with Alabama. There is a very difficult-to-find cookbook floating around out there that was published in 1898 entitled A Few Good Things to Eat, which was self-published by Emma Rylander Lane, who was a native of Clayton, Alabama. Lane entered a cake in a little country fair in Columbus, Georgia, where it won first prize. Lane had entitled her culinary confection Prize Cake due to this fact, and later it took on her name, being only known as Lane Cake.

The history of this delicious dessert is so long, and I'm not going to bore you with every little detail of every cookbook it's ever been in, but I will throw in that it was even mentioned in one of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird, where it was stated that 'Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight.' Shinny is Southern slang for liquor (typically moonshine).

The original version of this recipe only calls for raisins in the filling, but over time, many cooks have added chopped pecans, coconut, and even dried fruit. I personally prefer only raisins, pecan, and coconut.

This cake MUST be made at least two days before serving it, so the alcohol has time to dissipate a bit. Also, please read the instructions carefully on how to assemble and store this cake. There are a LOT of ingredients here, but the end result is absolutely worth the trouble it takes to make it. The original recipe consists of 4 cake layers. Mine is only 3.

You're going to need a candy thermometer for the frosting. This is the one I use, and it hasn't let me down yet.

Cake Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease 3 9 1/2" round cake pans with butter, cover the bottom with a circle of parchment paper, grease with butter again, and then sprinkle with a little flour.

2. Sift together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. In another large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, and beat for a few seconds more to incorporate it in to the mixture.

4. Add in 1/4 of the flour mixture, and mix for a few seconds before adding in 1/3 of the milk. Keep alternating the flour and milk, mixing after each addition, until it is all incorporated into the batter.

5. In a separate dry bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric hand mixer on low speed until they are foamy. This will take roughly 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium, and beat for 5 to 8 minutes, until soft peaks form.

6. Stir in 1/4 of the egg whites into the batter, then gently fold in the rest.

7. Pour the batter in equal amounts into your prepared cake pans, and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This will take roughly 20 to 25 minutes if you're using 3 cake pans, and 30 minutes if you're using 2.

8. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove them from the pans onto a wire cooling rack, and let cool completely.

Filling Directions:
1. Lightly beat the egg yolks and put them in a 2-quart pot.

2. Pour in the sugar, and beat until smooth.

3. Stir in the salt and butter, then cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. The mixture should be thick enough to coat the back of your spoon. This filling must be stirred constantly, or it will scorch very quickly. Do not let it come to a boil.

4. Remove from the heat, and gently stir in the rest of the filling ingredients. Set it aside, and let it cool, but do not put it in the refrigerator. It needs to come to room temperature before using it.

Frosting Directions:
1. In a small pot, combine the sugar and water and heat over low heat until the sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly.

2. Increase the heat to medium/high, and stop stirring. Let this mixture boil until it reaches 238 degrees on your candy thermometer.

3. While the sugar mixture is boiling, beat the egg whites in a small bowl on low speed until foamy, then add in the cream of tartar. Increase the speed to medium/high, and beat until soft peaks form.

4. Here comes the tricky part of making this type of frosting. With your mixer on medium speed, start beating the egg white foam, and slowly pour in the boiled sugar mixture. Make sure that the syrup absolutely does not touch the beaters, or it will spin out into long strands of hard sugar 'candy'.

5. Once the sugar mixture has been mixed in, add in the vanilla, and beat the frosting for several minutes until it is cool and creamy.

Cake Assembly:
If you're using 3 cake pans, place a cake on a COVERED serving dish, and top with 1/3 of the filling mixture. Top with another cake, more filling mix, another cake, and the remaining filling mix on top. Then, frost only the sides of the cake with the frosting.

If you are using 2 cake pans, you need to slice each of the cakes in half horizontally, and alternate the cakes with the filling, leaving the very top bare. Then, frost the entire cake.

THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT: Cover the cake with a loose-fitting lid, and let it 'ripen' in the refrigerator for 2 days, up to 2 weeks. If any filling leaks out, scoop it up and place it on top of the cake. The bourbon in the filling helps to preserve the cake, so it will keep for a long time if kept cold.

There you go! Your very own historic Lane cake. If you have any suggestions as to which dessert recipes you would like to see represent your state, let me know in the comments!